


a welcoming warmth

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Domestic Fluff, F/M, No Angst, One Shot, POV Jyn Erso, Romantic Fluff, Sweet, set after rotj
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:35:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22701850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: After the war, Jyn comes home on a rainy day. For once, she remembers to take off her muddy boots.Sweet, one shot fluff.(title change)
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 9
Kudos: 59





	a welcoming warmth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imsfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Comforting Closeness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17962997) by [Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome). 



“Fine, Andor!” Jyn announces, as she wipes her muddy boots on the woven mat in front of the door. The rain hammers down on the small durasteel overhang of the roof, forged from an old X-wing frame. They weren't the type to let anything go to waste, not even now. Jyn is grateful for the roof, and even more grateful for the fire she sees, and feels, crackling in the room ahead, where the edge of the large wooden bed could be seen. Part of her wants to dive straight into that warm bed, after the long, sodden trek home in the near-monsoon level weather outside. “I’ll admit it.”

She says the second sentence like it’s a punishment and the first like it’s a threat. SInce he doesn’t answer, she assumes he’s in the kitchen and decides to sneak up on him. Jyn likes impossible challenges like that, now that the biggest, most impossible challenge of all has been met.

They’ve _survived._

Survived it all. Every mission, every battle. The war itself.

Now, all they have to do is live out their hard-won peaceful days… which is sometimes easier said than done.

Rain has soaked through all of her clothes, which means she leaves puddles of droplets as she walks through the long narrow hall, her sock-clad feet masking her steps. She's finally started to feel a little less chilled, and warms up more at the thought of how amusing it will be to surprise him.

But Cassian hears her anyway. 

It has been ten years since he last took an undercover mission. Five since he last held a blaster. But his senses are as sharp as ever and he maneuvers in the kitchen as smoothly as a dancer, to pull her to his side, before she ever saw him sneak out of the pantry closet.

Pressed against him, Jyn breathes him in. He is scented with spices and warmth, his heartbeat a steady, strong percussion beating in time with her own. His beard brushes against her forehead as he holds her. Cassian, she thinks, might be slender, but his strength was the sort you could feel in every embrace, and trust in every moment.

Odd how something as simple as a long embrace feels so luxurious, even still. There never had been time, during the war, to linger. There never had been time to take her boots off, because she always needed to be able to run back into battle.

There never had been time for this, for the feeling of arms around her and their heartbeats thudding in time together in the silence.

“So, tell me,” he asks, softly. “What was I right about?”

“You heard me?”

“Jyn, I think citizens of the next _star system_ could hear you when you shout.” He pauses, a line creasing his brow. “You didn't leave your boots instead again, did you?”

“Yes, Cassian, I threw my muddy boots right on our bed, then, I grabbed handfuls of leaves and decorated the walls with them.” Jyn shakes her head, sliding out of his grasp, but only so that she can lean up to kiss his cheek.

He shakes his head. “Tell me. What am I right about?”

“You probably want me to say _everything,”_ Jyn drawls out the word, spreading her hands as if to encompass every element of the kitchen, from the reclaimed-ceramic tile walls to the small bar of Vloolii-berry soap on the sink.

Years ago, scented soap had been one of her only luxuries. Years ago, she hadn’t allowed herself to think of anything more than tiny joys like that, than a hot shower or a warm blanket.

There had been no long-term plans. Not during the war. Not when there was no time.

Now they make plans for things a month away, even a year away. They have a home now, here on Yavin IV. A home they’d made together, then, together, filled with both new memories and items that reminded them of the ones they had lost. A home that had been filled with their hearts, in a way.

They saved up and bought the kitchen set she had loved, (because it reminded her of her mother) and had the time to let Cassian carve the bed (which was a tradition that reminded him of Fest.) Neither of them had ever bothered to suggest making things more official than that. 

At first there had been no time, then, they’d determined they liked things just the way they were.

“I suppose,” Jyn says now, as she takes one step, then another, toward the electo-stove, where a durasteel pot is suspended over the heating element. “I could, perhaps,” she lifts the lid of the pot carefully, then breathes in the steam that escapes. “Tell you what you’re right about.”

Cassian folds his arms, then raises one eyebrow.

Jyn lets him wait as she savors the smells from the pot. Spices, ones that she now knows the name of, mixed with Jur-onions and fresh citrus from their own garden. The color of the stew is a rich brown, suggesting that Cassian finally used up the rest of the meat-free Ahai’’a’aa Nut Log that Luke had brought over, the last time he’d visited.

Which meant… “You said you were saving that.” Jyn spins to face Cassian again.

“I was.”

“But you used it.”

“I did.” 

“What were you saving it for?”

“The first day you left your muddy boots outside, of course.” Cassian replies, coming to stand next to her at the stove. He reaches for a spoon, then stirs the pot, before dipping it in and lifting out a selection of the ste. He holds it with practiced ease and Jyn leans in to try the food with the same sort of easy intimacy.

Cooking together had turned out to be the easiest part of living together.

The taste explodes like starlight on her tongue, filling her with a warmth that completely melts away all of the chill of the rain outside. As savory as it is, there’s a hint of brightness too, like a candle on a dark night. As always, she is amazed at the medley of flavors, at how complex one simple taste can be.

And as always, she’s hungry for a much larger serving.

But more importantly, she’s annoyed. “You don’t have to rub it in,” she retorts, glaring at him, (all the while thinking of how best to steal the spoon from him.)

“How so?” He sets the spoon down, then reaches past her for a ladle. 

“It’s delicious.”

“I know.” He replies, and although she cannot see his face, she hears the smile in the same way she had once heard the pain he wouldn’t speak of, or the concern he’d never name. Cassian cannot keep much from her, not now. 

They both like it that way. There had been too many years where too much had been held back, too many emotions locked away. But even a love locked away still had a chance to grow, once it was free, which turned out to be the case for both of them.

They had a surplus of love now, enough to share with their friends that had become family and enough to tuck away, hiding it like a precious gem, to share only with each other in the still silence of nights spent whispering under blankets.

Jyn licks her lips, tasting the last bit of the soup, and wishing that the spoon had been bigger. Patience was not a skill she’d developed, not even in peacetime. “Well that proves my point.”

“Which one?” Cassian begins to ladle out the stew into two hand-carved bowls.

“That you were right.”

“Well, that is not surprising.”

Jyn snorts. “Don’t get used to it.”

“I’ll try not to,” he replies.

Instead of looking at him, she glances around the kitchen. It’s spotlessly clean, with not a trace of an ingredient left out. Cassian keeps things much tidier than Jyn, which usually is a source of mild, amusing friction between the two. “When did you start cooking?”

“Right after you left yesterday. The flavor first must marinate, then simmer.”

Jyn reflects on that. Yesterday… today… What day was it? In peacetime, calendars ceased to matter in the same way. There were no missions marked out, no evacuations to count down. Was it a special day today? Had she forgotten some detail? A birthday?

No, neither of them celebrated those.

Instead, the answer sprung to mind when her gaze landed on the floor joists, made of Yavin pine. They’d built the house together…. And the day they had begun the project, with only a few bits of timber and some old military grade tech-canvas, had been today, six years ago.

Jyn smiles, keeping her knowledge secret, just as Cassian had. Sometimes, things were sweeter when they were left unsaid.

At least, Jyn tended to think so.

Cassian on the other hand…

“If you won’t tell me what I’m right about, you know I won’t share this.” He lifts one bowl, taking a sip from the edge. His eyebrows lift too, making him look younger than he is.

They both, in some ways, look younger now that the war is over, (grey hairs and all. Jyn finds them to be beautiful. A mark that they are survivors. That they, stubbornly, have lived long enough to go grey.)

“What is it, anyway?” Jyn asks, procrastinating, because as handsome as he is, she still doesn’t like being wrong.

“Birria. A soup. Good for hangovers.”

“Do you have one?”

“No, but I assumed you might.”

“Are you implying Shara is a bad influence on me?” Jyn teases, since she’d spent the last two days in the depths of the forest with Shara, harvesting new lumber.

“I’m not implying anything,” Cassian replies. “I only notice patterns in data. If you’d like, we can holo-call Kaytu for the statistical probability that--”

“Let him enjoy his holiday,” Jyn laughs. “And let me enjoy the soup, hangover or not.”

“First, tell me why I’m right.”

She rolls her eyes, sighs dramatically, before finally saying what she had already admitted to Shara (who, after all, had been the first one who had gotten Jyn to admit she loved Cassian, and therefore was rather good at coaxing the truth from someone almost as stubborn as Shara herself.), “Core world food is the most dismal thing.”

“Go on.” Cassian blows on the soup, his lips pursed as if for a perfect kiss.

“It just… is." A memory of bland Core bread, followed by a flavorless clear brother, served on the finest Imperial china, when she'd been very, very small, flickered in her mind. It was chased away, replaced by happier, though just has bland, other memories of food. Toast with melted cheese. Various over-stewed root vegetables. Some terrible dish Leia had made, though that may have been a reflection of the former-princess's cooking skills, more than a demerit to Core Cuisine. "Shara had baked these amazing little pastry pockets and--”

“Empanadas.”

“Yes! They were incredible. They were…”

“Not bland?” he teases, setting his bowl down. “Full of flavor?” With that, he places a hand on the small of her back. She turns to face him, lifting her head to stare up at him, memorizing the true smile on his face, just in case it disappears again. One cannot be too cautious, not even in a time of peace. “The most wonderful you’ve ever had?”

At that, Jyn kisses him then, hard, on the lips. The spice of the soup lingers on him, making the kiss all the richer. His stubbly beard brushes against her soft skin, reminding her that this is real, that this isn’t a dream, as wonderful as it is. His own hands grip her tunic, as if she might slip away. One cannot be too cautious. There had been too many almost-kisses, too many broken moments between them during the war.

Now, when they kiss, they kiss with passion, with surety, wrapped up in the safety of all that their home is to them. There is nothing dismal here, nothing cold, nothing empty and flavorless like a ration bar. Instead, the love between them is bright and strong, warm enough to heat them both, to spark a light in their eyes and a different sort of hunger in their hearts.

Their love, Jyn knows, is just like that soup. It simmered for so long before it was ready. Now, though, it is well- seasoned, delicious. Ready. They're both ready for the rest of their lives, now, in a way they never dreamed they could be. 

“No,” Jyn says breathlessly when they pause, neither of them willing to let go for any reason less important than oxygen supply., “you are the most wonderful thing I’ll ever have.”

"Mm," he smiles again at that, kissing her forehead. Taking his time, because that was the luxury they had now. Time enough to simmer a stew all day, to spend all night kissing, to spend all their lives together. "Did you really remember to leave your boots outside? You know that floor--" 

"is an inlaid work of art you and Kes made, yes, yes," she teases him. There's always been time for that, for them. Why Cassian has signed up for a lifetime of it baffles her, but she's delighted he has. She secretly wonders if she'd gotten the better half of this bargain, in loving him. She secretly feels like she cheated the whole universe, in winning his heart, and is even more delighted in that. Jyn likes winning, almost as much as she loves to gamble. On some things, that is. On this? On them, no she'd never risk anything more than her whole heart. "The boots are outside." 

"Then you, Jyn Erso," Cassian says, kissing her again, this time, deeply on the lips, as passionately as the storm rages outside, "are the most wonderful thing as well." 

**Author's Note:**

> Almost a year ago, Imsfire challenged me to write a sequel of sorts to the fic linked above.  
> She also believed in me when I personally couldn't find a sense of peace, in writing or in life. I'm so grateful to her quiet, yet strong, sort of friendship.  
> I'm doing better now, and happier endings are easier for me to see, and to read.  
> We've talked a lot about happy endings for characters, and Ims, I hope this one for these two makes you happy.  
> Comments welcome!!!


End file.
